From where I stand...

This new series captures the unique and powerful stories of people around the world, through compelling first-person accounts of their daily sustainable development challenges and how they are bringing about change.

Maria Judite da Silva Ballerio

"I have a niece who has had the Zika virus. She’s indigenous. Women in Brazil are in a state of panic...”

Sita Shrestha

Stella Cosmas Chetto

“At first, my husband was not very supportive because he said ‘politics is a big challenge, you will spend a lot of money and, as a woman you will not gain enough support because politics is for men.’ But I continued and he saw that I was gaining support, he changed his mind...”

Assétou Touré

Yanar Mohammed

“The situation is very grim in Iraq. We run into many young women who have run away from their homes, who have been trapped by a trafficking group who have put them in brothels, who want to escape to have a better life, and they cannot go back home because they will be killed...”

Tebogo Mashego

Lucía del Socorro Basante

“I was scared to become a candidate [in the Department of Nariño, Colombia], despite all my years of experience as a lawyer. Fear paralyses you. The fear that male councillors will raise their voices, the fear of not being capable, of being in men’s territory...”

Sonja Dimitrijoska

“Although the job can be very stressful and intense, I love what I am doing. I started working as a humanitarian worker at the refugee transit centre in Tabanovce* [former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia] in October 2015. Trains arrived every two to three hours and we had around 10,000 people arriving and leaving per day...”

Laura Bosnea

"When I was 21, my husband 'stole'* me from my father. I was a student at the time. My father agreed, with one condition—if my husband would allow me to finish law school. But we ended up having two kids and I couldn’t complete my studies...”

Surayo Mirzoyeva

Souhad Azennoud

“In our mountain village here in Kissane, in Morocco's Taounate Province, we can see the impact of climate change. People notice it and say, ‘Before, the wheat was higher and didn't need to be sprayed’...”

Cristina Francisco Reyes

“One of the main obstacles I’ve faced, is that women with disabilities are stigmatized and labelled as ‘ill’, as being incapable of developing leadership, incapable of having an impact and influence on social changes, equity, our equality and our political participation...”